This invention relates to reactant flow fields in a fuel cell having partly low pressure flow through reactant flow field channels and partly interdigitated flow field channels.
The electrochemical reactions in fuel cells are well known. The reactants in alkaline, acid, or solid polymer electrolyte fuel cells are hydrogen or a hydrogen rich fuel at the anode, and an oxygen or air oxidant at the cathode. It is known to use interdigitated reactant flow fields to minimize concentration polarization within fuel cells operating with dilute reactants.
Interdigitated reactant flow fields, in which entrance gas flow channels do not directly connect to exit gas flow channels, thereby force the reactant gas to flow into an adjacent layer of the fuel cell. This results in forced convection of the reactant toward the electro catalyst so that a greater proportion of the reactant flowing through the reactant flow fields is utilized more efficiently. However, the forced convection cannot be achieved effectively without an increase in the pressure drop across the flow field. The increased pressure drop, in turn, requires a higher pressurization of the reactant gas, thereby consuming a greater proportion of the electricity which is generated by the fuel cell, which is called parasitic power. The suitability of fuel cells for any particular utilization is at least partly dependent upon its overall efficiency, including not only the efficiency of generating the electricity, but the cost (in power) of generating that electricity. Thus, the overall efficiency of the fuel cell is of paramount importance, particularly in mobile equipment, such as vehicles, which not only must transport a load, and the fuel cell, but also the fuel which is to be utilized, in one form or another.
Objects of the invention include provision of fuel cells which take advantage of the reactant utilization obtainable with interdigitated reactant flow fields without requiring prohibitive parasitic power resulting from the need for increased pressure.
This invention is predicated on the discovery that the reactant utilization advantage of interdigitated flow fields is not necessary when the reactant concentration has been depleted only slightly, but rather the advantage of interdigitated flow fields becomes operative part way through the reactant flow field, when the reactant concentration has been significantly depleted. The invention is further predicated on the discovery that the reduction in reactant concentration utilizing a reactant flow field which is only partially interdigitated can be substantially the same as the reactant concentration in which the entire reactant flow field is interdigitated, while at the same time decreasing by approximately one-half the pressure necessary to effect such reactant utilization.
According to the present invention, the reactant flow field of a fuel cell is configured partly with flow-through flow channels and partly configured with interdigitated flow channels. According to the invention further, the flow-through flow channels are upstream of the interdigitated flow channels. The hybrid flow channels may be implemented in a straight flow field or a flow field which is folded one or more times. The junction between flow-through flow field channels and interdigitated flow field channels may be adjacent to a manifold, or may be intermediate the manifolds.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in the light of the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments thereof, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.